Teachers of tomorrow: How gender framings of the teaching profession affect students' intention to teach

Abstract

Abstract. The teaching profession faces a general shortage of teachers in most countries, but a lack of male teachers is particularly prevalent. Past research has demonstrated that students' career choices depend in part on a job's assumed gender fit, i.e. whether a profession is perceived as appropriate for one's own gender. This process may be particularly relevant for adolescent boys and clashes with the perception of the teaching profession as a predominantly feminine profession. Therefore, perceived gender fit of the teaching profession was expected to affect high school students' intention to teach, especially for male students. In the present experimental research, we investigated whether a variation of the (perceived) gender fit of the teaching profession has an impact on students' immediate intention to become a teacher. In two experiments ( N = 126 and N = 342), we expected and found that a gender fit framing, which involved either simple reflection on male or female teachers, or on manipulated information about the gender ratio within the teaching profession, increased the intention of male students' to become teachers compared to non-gender fit or neutral framing. In contrast, female students were not affected by the gender fit manipulations. The implications for gender-bias free recruitment of future teachers are discussed.